Russian Nominal Semantics and Morphology

Cover

Title Page, Copyright

Contents

Preface

The idea of writing a book on the interaction of the lexical semantics
and the grammar, in particular the morphology, of the Russian noun
arose in the middle of the 1990's. For a number of reasons, the genesis
of the book was long and things changed in the course of time. However,
the principal idea...

1. Introduction

This book is devoted to a broad subsection of modern Russian grammar.
I consider the nominal parts of speech: nouns, adjectives, pronouns,
and numerals. Adverbs, which by derivation and otherwise are
closely associated with nouns, are examined where appropriate...

2. The Noun: Lexis and Grammar

The present chapter introduces the semantic distinctions that are
grammaticalized in the Russian noun and sets up a corresponding
noun classification. Chapters 3-6 show how these distinctions are reflected
in declensional classes and the grammatical categories, animacy...

3. The Noun: Declensional Class

Like Slavic inflection in general, Russian noun declension is characterized
by a number of alternations in both stem and desinences. The
alternations are governed by a complicated set of phonological and
morpho-phonological rules. Since in this presentation I wish to focus
on lexical and...

4. The Noun: Animacy

As a lexically encoded category, animacy represents an inherent property
of the noun stem. A Russian noun possesses either the feature AN
or the feature INAN. As already mentioned, these features are inherent
(lexically encoded), i.e., independent of the particular inflectional
form...

5. The Noun: Gender

Like animacy, gender is lexically encoded. As an inherent feature of
the noun stem, it is responsible for a classification of nouns into three
groups: masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns. Not surprisingly,
there are many points of similarity in the ways animacy and gender
are formally...

6. The Noun: Number

For this reason, number is consistently reflected in the inflection of
both the noun itself and all nominaIs agreeing with the noun, whether
they are used as attributes, predicates, relative pronouns, or anaphors.
Russian nominals have separate sets of desinences signalling SG and
PL, respectively...

7. Adjectives

As appears from the above, adjectives are subordinate to nouns in all
possible syntactic functions. This relation of subordination is signalled
by agreement, i.e., by reflection of the grammatical values of the controller
noun in the inflection of the adjective. All grammatical categories
of the...

8. Pronouns

Pronouns are traditionally considered to constitute a separate part of
speech (for a different point of view, see Švedova 1980, I). However,
how this part of speech should be delimited is a question of interpretation.
Unlike nouns and adjectives, pronouns cannot be defined on
the basis...

9. Numerals

In Modern Russian, numerals constitute a separate part of speech.
However, how to delimit this part of speech can be seen as a question
of interpretation. In most grammars, especially those with a pedagogical
profile, the definition of numerals as a part of speech rests on
purely semantic...

10. Concluding Remarks

The idea running through this book is that lexis and grammar make
up a single coherent structure. The results of the investigations provide
evidence for the claim that there is something that can be labeled
language structure. Every language has its own overall, typologically
specific structure...

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